Burning Embers: What I Expect/Want From Skyrim

Skryim, possibly the most anticipated game of the year. You all have been waiting for this moment and the countdown has finally begun. Thursday I will be leaving a bit before 10 PM to go to the midnight release of Skyrim at our local (30 or so minute drive) boonies gamestop here in the California foothills to retrieve my pre-order copy of Skyrim and the lovely burlap map that comes with it. To make you just that more anxious about the game I’m going to talk about what I expect (and want) from Skyrim. Oh yeah.

Better Leveling System than Oblivion

Did you ever find yourself playing for hours on end in Oblivion only to gain maybe one level if you were lucky? Well, I do anyways. I got frustrated with it and just used god mode, kill all, and Midas Magicks to force my way through the Oblivion world. I know! I’m a cheat but the leveling system in that game just ruined things for me. When you went to save the royal dude from that burning village there were FIRE ATRONACHES. Friggin Fire Atronaches and I think a Frost Atronach. Come on! Not even Morrowind did that to you. You were slowly guided to more and more difficult quests as you progressed through the storyline in Morrowind. The leveling system was also better. Morrowind’s leveling system was what made the game so much fun. I could go through and destroy the mobs in a dungeon as long as I took them on one by one and had enough health potions. It was challenging but not absurdly difficult. Bethesda has been saying that the leveling system for Skyrim is better than that of Oblivion so we shall see how much better it is.

Dragon Fights and Shouts:

Dragons are the huge seller for Skryim, Bethesda has been hyping these beasts since E3. I’m hoping that battles against these behemoths aren’t too challenging, but challenging enough to make the experience worthwhile. I also expect the rewards and shouts you get from Dragons are worth the effort.

Story Manager:

This was quite an interesting feature that was announced awhile back. People will love or hate you depending on your actions. This type of thing has been in the Fable games since Fable I but Skyrim seems to be one upping what Fable did. The story manager feature will also allow you to have followers. Going off tangent for a bit, in Morrowind having someone follow you was a pain. The NPCs were extremely slow and some times became stuck by obstacles. Hope you fixed this in Skyrim Bethesda! Now back to the followers in Skyrim. In the Morrowind and Oblivion games, when you were in command of people you couldn’t do much with them. I don’t expect more of a variety of choices but I really want more of a variety of choices. I want to tell my guy to go and burn a chicken! That way his friends won’t like him and I would be his confidante. Oh me.

Crime Reporting/Sneakiness

Now, while it’s annoying to have someone report your crime it’s also nice to have a challenge while sneaking around. In Morrowind it was quite easy to steal something as long as the person was dead or had their back turned to you. I expect a more challenging stealing and sneaking experience in this game. I don’t expect chickens to be reporting my crimes though!

Leveled Chests:

Don’t ever put these in a TES game again Bethesda. PERIOD. Nuff’ said.

Becoming a Mad God:

This is more of a want than what I expect. I really enjoyed becoming Mad God of the Shivering isles. It would be just fantastic if Bethesda were to put something like this in Skyrim, or a quest similar to it. Like becoming ruler of a town or quite a few towns.

House Leader

In Morrowind there were three great houses that you could become the leader of. House Hlaalu, House Redoran, and House Telvanni. I always chose Telvanni because their houses were neat and had more storage space (downstairs dungeon with a permanent corpse). Again, this is another want. I really want factions in this game. It was just so much fun climbing the ladder in House Telvanni and gaining my own home. However, I really didn’t have any rule over anyone. If they do implement factions or something similar then I would like rule over my subjects. Kthanks Bethesda.

I hope you enjoyed my little rant and hopefully you enjoy Skryim even more! I can not wait until I receive my copy. Until then, I play Arkham City or Flyff. Oh yes.

Every Monday Ember crawls from his cave to come and deliver his opinion to you the readers. His grumpy Monday attitude fuels the fire that burns onto the screen to form the weekly article: Burning Embers.